Climate of fear: scientists face death threats

Whether these threatening emails are the result of one deranged individual or multitude, whether this is the work of those opposed to Carbon Tax, some fringe Sceptics or even enterprising climate Alarmists (Appendix 1), trying to smear the sceptics or whether it does or does not reach the seriousness of a police investigation, the implications are the same:

1. There is no place for personal intimidation in our society for any reason whatsoever. No ‘buts’ or ‘howevers’. It has no place in Australian society.

2. Threats to family members and especially children are the absolutely lowest form of criminal behaviour. Even the likes of Mafia are reputed to prohibit it. If anyone doing this thinks it’s harmless because it’s just words, think again, long and hard. Anyone convicted of threatening families especially, should be jailed for a long time as an example to others.

3. We agree with Professor Ian Chubb’s statement that these emails are ”an outrageous attack on open and public debate …. They are the antithesis of democratic debate”. Hear, hear.

While on the topic of supporting open debate, we would invite the professor to extend this criticism to another disturbing ‘outrageous attack on democratic debate’, not by some criminal anonymous emailers, but by our Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard . She has unilaterally dismissed and villified all opposing arguments in the democratic debate with the majority of Australians who remain unconvinced of the need for this carbon tax. She has done this by her declaration: “we don’t have time to waste’ on carbon tax debate that lacks facts and reason.” If dozens of qualified sceptic scientists, many Australian business associations and industries and the majority of population ‘lack reason’, then Ms Gillard must be forgetting whose will it is she represents.

Many Australians further believe that Ms Gillard represents Prof Chubb’s “antithesis of democratic debate”. Her widely perceived lie that “’There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,” sidestepped an a critical democratic debate, as has Ms Gillard’s convening of a Climate Committee restricted to only ‘believers’ in climate catastrophe and pricing carbon.

4. Climate sceptics stand for the exact opposite of what these emailers are said to be achieving and Ms Gillard is trying to achieve – we stand for open democratic debate of the science and policies until we are confident that a real problem exists, not just in computer models and effective and least costly solutions are defined and tested. Our frustration with this government is that they claim falsely that the debate is over, the science settled, carbon tax a done deal. Alarmist climate scientists are brave enough to publish reports and speak to lay radio announcers, but they seem to avoid debating their peer sceptic scientists. Perhaps this is because they invariably seem to fail to carry the argument against such expert sceptic colleagues (Appendix 2 – Debates).

In the spirit of public debate, an alliance of climate sceptics have invited Lord Monckton to Sydney this July to speak at several functions. If Prof Chubb wants to protect democratic debate, he may encourage Profs Will Steffen, Andy Pitman and David Karoly to publicly explain and discuss their climate model science and the tax with the likes of Profs Ian Plimer, Bob Carter and Garth Paltridge, A/Prof Stewart Franks, Bill Kininmonth, David Evans or Lord Monckton. We would gladly try to arrange such a forum, which would be sure to answer the many questions on the public’s minds. We look forward to any response.

—————————————————————–Appendix 1:

What some extreme Climate Arlarmist would like to do with Sceptics (in jest, of course):

Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.
Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ”Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?”
On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy.

—————————————————————-Appendix 2: Recent Debates

All the climate debates between Alarmists and Sceptics I could find with Google; all were said to have resolved in favour of sceptics, admitedly some by partisan commentators:

Queensland Division of the Property Council of Australia, breakfast meeting June 3rd: “Australia needs a carbon tax”. Link.

Note: Winning public debates, of course, does not prove or disprove a sceintific thesis. However, when that thesis demands the greatest lifestyle change for our population since WWII, the populace expects public debates and has a right to expect the thesis to withstand robust scrutiny and challenge by laymen and experts alike.